


Winter Winds

by FlorenceofArabia



Category: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)
Genre: 1930s, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Married Life, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Talking, World War I, World War II, because WWI ruins everything, everyone talks about their feelings, possible PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 19:49:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11297634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlorenceofArabia/pseuds/FlorenceofArabia
Summary: Guinevere and Joe begin their new life together, finding that they have a great deal to discover and discuss





	Winter Winds

“As the winter winds litter London with lonely hearts  
Oh the warmth in your eyes swept me into your arms”  
\- Mumford and Sons 

Chapter 1  
There is so much she wants to say to Joe as they walk arm in arm out of the station. It is still profoundly difficult for Guinevere to wrap her mind around; him showing up the way he did, to tell her he wanted to be with her from the other side of the station’s iron lattice. She had needed it, the intricacy of the barrier. Because in that moment, everything else which had stood between them was gone; all the misdirection and the secrets and the evasions. Guinevere had never realized that it was possible to be so pulled in different directions; to be so acutely self conscious yet so comfortable in someone’s presence, to be drawn in completely and want to run away as fast as she could, to be so certain and so unsure all at the same time.  
As they cross the street together she sneaks a quick glance at him. She can tell that he is aware of her, out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t look at her in return. He doesn’t need to stare right now, her arm is linked with his and he has all the time in the world to look if he wants to. He seems so perfectly content and when Guinevere turns to really see him; the look on his face makes her unreasonably happy; ‘He’s smiling like that because of me’ she thinks ‘all I had to do was nod my head and that’s made him so happy’ and that makes her smile too. The wind picks up and she pulls herself even closer to his solid warmth. In return he can’t help but turn to her as he pulls her close as well. They lock eyes and the wind off the river, the weathered white stones of the pavement, the traffic in the street, and everything else falls away around them.  
“Guinevere…” He’s been calling her Miss Pettigrew for the few hours that they’ve known each other, but until a few minutes ago her first name is unexplored territory, as is his  
“Joe…” The moment hangs there and then she blurts out “I’m terribly sorry”  
‘Damn’ she thinks ‘I wanted to kiss him but somehow I didn’t realize it until it was too late…and I just swore again even if it was only in my head’  
“Whatever for, my dear?” His brow furrows and those intense dark eyes of his are searching her face ‘Oh no, now he thinks I’m going to take it all back’  
“I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you…about Edythe, about us having met before, about who I really am…I’m not…you see I am normally a very truthful person” she finishes a little lamely  
“Oh that, there’s no need to apologize. I don’t think you were being dishonest”  
“I told you things that weren’t true, that’s rather the definition of being dishonest. We did meet before but I was embarrassed so I tried to pretend….and….well and I just…I wanted to be this social secretary who drank cocktails and wore makeup and didn’t drop things on people’s shoes and wasn’t completely bowled over by a scarf.” She looks up to see that he’s smiling once again and she starts to feel like it really isn’t the great issue she had thought it was.  
“Are you sure that you and this woman aren’t one and the same?” He asks her “I mean, if you weren’t a social secretary before, you seem to have made quiet a commendable one during your time with Miss Lafosse. Its not as though makeup is something a lady is born with…unless you all are in which case my whole view of the world is thrown into chaos. Besides…” he adds his tone shifting from playful to deeply sincere “I cannot tell you how deeply touched I was by what you said about my scarf.”  
“So now I see how it goes; it doesn’t matter that I was less than straightforward because I stroked your ego.” He laughs at this and she surprises herself a little by putting her head back on his shoulder  
“When something I’ve created genuinely makes someone happy…well it feels like maybe my life hasn’t been such a waste after all” Now she can’t tell if he’s being serious anymore  
“You shouldn’t think that Joe, the world is such an ugly place right now we need all the beauty we can get…and don’t you dare talk about your life in the past tense.” Then she charges ahead with something she is certain of, even if she has no right to be “You and I are going to have many happy years together”  
“Of course, and to think this is just the beginning”  
She feels him bend a little to the side so his slightly rough cheek brushes against the top of her forehead, his head resting on hers. Of course he hadn’t shaved yet since he’d been out all night looking for her. ‘Joe’s been out all night looking for me’ she had to repeat that thought again before she completely believed it.  
There weren’t many other people out and about at this hour but she notices a woman open her door to get the morning paper and regard them both with what seemed to her a very strange look. And they were probably a strange sight to see. In public, in broad daylight almost intertwined, and in last night’s evening clothes. Whatever would her father say if he could see her now? Not that she’d done anything really wrong mind you, just agreed to spend the rest of her life with a man she had known for less than twenty four hours. She was deeply aware of the irony of spending a whole day telling Delyssia to trust in her heart and seize the moment; only to second guess her own advice now that she’d followed it.  
“Guinevere, I’m afraid we are going to have to break apart for a little bit, unless you’d rather go someplace else to eat.” His lips almost touch her ear as he says this and, for the merest second, it distracts her from the fact that he’d mentioned breakfast.  
“If this place serves food than it’s met all of my requirements…I think I had breakfast the day before yesterday and since then I’ve had two cucumber slices and some cocktail olives.” At different points throughout the day and night both nerves and excitement had temporarily taken her attention away from the dull ache in her stomach, but now that she is reminded of this, it took precedent over those other emotions.  
“My poor darling, I didn’t realize. Let us remedy that situation right away.” She wonders if Joe called most women ‘dear’ and ‘darling’ pretty quickly but realized that it didn’t matter. She liked the way the words sounded and they were meant for her; she wanted him to keep calling her those things. He also wanted to take care of her and she wasn’t sure how to feel about that. She would not sleep in a train station again if there was any other option but she didn’t fancy the idea of being taken in like a stray cat. For now at least the point was moot as she had no conflicted feelings over letting him take her to breakfast.  
Soon after entering the restaurant they are shown to a corner table, which offers them a panoramic view of all their fellow diners. Joe makes sure to ask for tea and toast right away. She’s given a menu, which thoroughly overwhelms her for a minute or two before she makes her choice. Their tea comes and after a few sips she feels a little more alive, maybe it’s because of the drink itself or maybe it’s all due to the warmth of the liquid. She turns her attention back to her companion, to find that his had never left her.  
He reaches out his hand tentatively towards hers and she grasps it letting their fingers knit together and lie on the table between them. It had been a long time since she had someone to hold hands with. Whenever she saw couples just walking about, making sure to keep up a casual, but nonetheless crucial, connection between them; it made her feel a good deal more alone in life than more flagrant public displays of affection…mostly those just made her uncomfortable. During these instances she told herself that this was a silly girlish thing to be hung up on. There were other lonely desires as well, but she could justify to herself wanting to be the reason a man smiled, to wake up with a husband beside her, to enjoy deeper private intimacies, and to be kissed the way only the beautiful glamorous women in the pictures were kissed. But wanting to hold hands felt like a frivolity that she should have left behind once she had resigned herself to her solitary life.  
She can tell that Joe has something on his mind but is letting the silence continue because…well she isn’t sure why. Maybe he’s still giving her some space, maybe it’s because he’s tired too and doesn’t feel up to making conversation. ‘Or maybe we have nothing to say to each other’ says that frightened self defeating little voice in the back of her thoughts  
“You look as if you want to say something” She offers out loud to force the issue  
“I want to say a great many things” He responds, whatever it is that was on his mind clearly not pressing him to give it voice “But I fear if I start telling you how beautiful I think you are, I’ll either make you uncomfortable or you’ll accuse me of being professional.”  
“Oh do stop it, I know who I am and what I look like. I don’t need to hear you turn me into something I’m not. Besides, I think you really do see every woman as beautiful. I rather like that about you. I can’t stand men who see themselves as the absolute arbiters of female desirability…but it does make me feel like you could have anyone across the table from you right now and find something nice to say to them.” Joe raises his eyebrows at this  
“You’re not getting away from my compliments that easily. The problem is that you as good as admitted you want to be glamorous and that you care what I think. So you can’t pretend to me that you are made of too wholesome a material to want a man you like to find you attractive. But since you won’t accept my completely sincere opinion that you are a singularly beautiful woman, its only fair for you to tell me what you think of my appearance.”  
Guinevere isn’t entirely sure how to respond to this so she stalls a little “I do care a great deal about your opinion, I must admit. There’s a part of me that wants to be beautiful; I don’t know if it can be helped. Do you really need me to tell you how exactly I think you look? Are you that vain?” She asks hoping it comes off as teasing rather than harsh but he responds with such an exaggerated expression of offense that it’s clear to her that none was actually taken.  
“I prefer the term “aesthetically obsessed”. I never said I wanted you to call me handsome, because I know I’m not. I’m just dying to know your opinion is all.”  
As luck would have it, their food showed up right at that moment, giving Guinevere a temporary reprieve from having to respond to him. For a few moments she completely gives herself over to her meal, surprised at just how satisfying a combination was eggs, bacon, toast, and tea.  
It wasn’t that she had no opinion on the matter, just that she’d never been in the position of complimenting a significant other on his appearance. She didn’t like to compare Joe to her long dead fiancée. It didn’t feel fair to either of them somehow. But Charles was the only man she had much experience with, so it was hard not to consult back to those memories. But he had been a very different sort of person. He probably couldn’t have told the difference between any two pieces of lady’s undergarments and would have been very embarrassed if asked to. He never would have thought to ask her if she found him attractive. Granted, he had never told her she was beautiful either. Not that this had bothered her at all, she knew he hadn’t loved her any less, and that hadn’t been the point of their relationship. But now Joe is here and he seems to genuinely see her as beautiful. Guinevere can’t deny being touched by that.  
She does like his looks, but she doesn’t know how to tell him that without making him sound like a list of component parts or just damning him with faint praise. So she tries her best to summarize what was it she found so appealing about him;  
“I don’t know if I’d call you handsome” She responds finally “To start out with I think you belong to a bygone era, you still have it all but the fashion’s changed”  
“So I belong in a museum with the Elgin Marbles?” Guinevere notes that here he’s referencing a conversation that he had with someone else but one that she had been listening to. He must have noticed she’d been eavesdropping, and that’s why he had come over to talk to her in the first place…or maybe he really had looked at her and found her attractive. But then again, it could have been he’d assumed she must be a client, since she was wearing his scarf.  
“Yes” she answers after a moment’s reflection “but over in the Roman wing I think; amongst the Caesars”  
“I will take that as a compliment, even though I’m not handsome”  
“Which is how I meant it. As far as I’m concerned handsome rather a generic thing to be. I would say that you are striking, which is altogether better, I think. I know that’s not fair since you called me beautiful but I do mean it fondly. I’ve seen handsome men from across rooms before. I noted then and my gaze fell on other things and other people. I couldn’t remember them under any circumstance; none of them have ever struck me the way you did yesterday morning…I’m sure that even if you hadn’t come to talk to me I’d still be thinking about you” She ends on that note and in doing so reaches out her hand under the table to take his, restoring the connection that had been abandoned when they had both needed their hands for the immediate purpose of using utensils. Joe for his part doesn’t seem at all put off by her assessment.  
“I…I never meant that to a trick question, I wasn’t evaluating you if that’s what you thought…I did just want to know how you felt about me. But of course in your hands you managed to turn it into something both very practical and wonderfully romantic and I am quiet touched.”  
“Oh good. Although I can’t help but think you still have other questions for me.” She had felt like she was being evaluated. But she appreciated that Joe hadn’t meant it that way and that he now saw that he’d rather put her on the spot. But that was the thing about him, he gently pushed her into uncomfortable territory then offered her the option to retreat to safer ground, only she never took it and just ended in pushing him further.  
“I have a hundred questions; so many I am not sure where to start. I want to know everything about you. But before we get to those…I guess you could say I would like to tie up a couple of loose ends first…I don’t mean to pry my dear, but I am rather curious to know how you got yourself mixed up in the whole business with Edythe and Gerry.” He mentions his fiancée’s infidelity without sorrow or bitterness, genuinely seeming to care more about Guinevere’s part in the story than anything else.  
“Don’t you want why I was in a bread line to begin with?” She asks, not really wanting to talk about it now but realizing that if she’s going to tell the story properly she should start at the beginning.  
“Only if you feel like telling me. I hope you don’t think I’d judge you for being in straightened circumstances, I know how hard it must be to find work right now. Although on that note…and I’m sorry to have forgotten this…last night at the club when it became clear that Miss LaFosse would probably not be requiring a social secretary a couple of friends of mine came over to and wanted to know if you would be available to come and work for them sometime in the near future?”  
This was welcome news. Of course her lack of employment was a pressing problem but since saying goodbye to Delyssia she had decided that she really couldn’t be asked to think about it until she had something to eat and a few hours of sleep. But now that she had seemingly cut off the head of that problem, many little problems sprouted from the severed neck to menace her.  
“Well I would have to talk to them first and see what they were like and what was expected of me…I mean…I’ve come to the conclusion that I can adapt to quiet a lot if I put my mind to it but I’m not actually a social secretary, you see. Until the other day I was a governess although, like you were saying last night, I do think its time for a change.”  
“Did you not like it then, looking after children?” He asks this question very casually but she wondered if he was implying that he did not personally like children or was surprised that she did not…or maybe he was just trying to get to know her a little better.  
“The children were fine…most of the time…some of the time. It was the parents I couldn’t stand”  
She leaves it at that for the moment. Later she will tell him how much it hurt to look after other people’s children knowing that she would never have any of her own; seeing glimpses of the life she could have had. Or when she worked for parents who didn’t seem to care at all for their offspring, only seeing them as a nuisance or trying to force them to be reflections of their own thwarted hopes and looming anxieties.  
What she did tell him then, was that the argument that had led to her dismissal had been with one such parent. They had been disagreeing about her son’s education and it had ended in the woman snapping that she had no right to talk being “a dried up old spinster with no children of her own” to which Guinevere had made some very accurate (but not especially diplomatic) observations about her consumption of alcohol, her methods of parenting, and her character in general. This had resulted in her being let go. After explaining that, she relayed the manner in which she had seen Edythe and Gerry going at it in the alleyway and then for the sake of clarity how Edythe had asked…well sort of blackmailed her to talk to him on her behalf. This she had tried to do but just wound up talking to him about other things instead.  
“So that was that. I kept my mouth shut because I was frightened that if she revealed who I really was, the stroke of luck I’d just happened upon would disappear and I’d simply be back on the street and… you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.” At first Joes does not respond to this. Then he brings their hands over to his side of the table and, after thoughtfully examining hers for a moment, brings it to his lips and kisses it. But afterwards he quickly glances at her as if to ask that was all right. She, for her part, stifles the urge to turn round to see if anyone is giving them strange looks. ‘Of course someone in this restaurant must be staring at us’ she thinks in that nasty little voice that dogged her thoughts and refused to stay quiet ‘to be so public at our age? We must look ridiculous’ But she didn’t turn round; because the new Miss Pettigrew swore, and had on silk undergarments, and went to nightclubs, and ran off with someone else’s fiancée and didn’t care who looked at her. So she smiles at Joe, giving him a little nod of approval and he continues their conversation;  
“I am sorry that you were put into that position. I thought, at that moment, Edythe was being rather cruel but I didn’t realize that she was actively threatening you. If so…well I would have had words for her” This is the first time there was a shade of anger lying somewhere within the low measured cadence of his words. It was an emotion that normally frightened her, especially in a man. But Joe was threatening no retribution and the feeling did not seem to be born of jealousy but a simple sense that some things were not to be stood for. But she was a little surprised that he had taken this long to express it.  
Before Guinevere can say anything an impatient looking young waiter asks them if they want the bill. It hasn’t seemed very long to her but she can also see that there’s a cue at the front of the restaurant and that its probably apparent that they’d stay there for another couple of hours if not dislodged with all due haste. So once again they head out into the morning arm in arm, but now lacking a specific destination. She suddenly realizes how deeply tired she is, but has no desire to sleep. In order to rest Guinevere would have to figure out where she could do that. Then there was a deeper, more superstitious, sort of reason. Even though her special day had technically come to a close a while ago, it wouldn’t feel truly over for her until she went to bed… and she didn’t want it to end. So instead of addressing any of this she simply picks up their conversation where it left off.  
“I thought that you two must have had an dreadful row after I went away” She says; “You know, when I said goodbye then, I didn’t think I was ever going to see you. I won’t say it didn’t hurt but, in a way, I was happy because I knew you were free”  
“Not really, I just told her I was glad to finally have the truth of the matter. I didn’t care to have a row with her because…for one thing because I hate fights, especially pointless ones and especially in public.” She nodded her approval of this sentiment. “It was primarily because every moment I spent in that alleyway I ran the risk of letting you disappear into the night. And as I’d just learned that you might be out on the street with nowhere to go, I was terribly worried. Although that was my primary concern, I have to go on record as saying; the thought never seeing you again hurt me rather a lot” She blushed upon hearing this but found that letting herself enjoy a romantic gesture was difficult at this stage.  
“I do feel a certain amount of sympathy for her”  
“Edythe? Once she stops being angry she’ll be thoroughly glad to be rid of me. It speaks to your character that you say that but don’t worry, she’ll land on her feet.” Joe says this without malice but she feels she and Edythe are being dismissed, by a man who thinks he’s got the measure of both of them, and she doesn’t entirely care for it.  
“You know, she was really was crying when she asked me to help her. I don’t think it was because of the breakup but because she needed you in the first place. She told me that neither of us had the advantages the Delyssias of this world possess. But I suppose you think that’s ridiculous”  
“I do, what does Delyssia have that you two don’t?” In his own way he meant that, Guinevere believed this and loved him all the more for it  
“Rich, powerful, influential men want her. For a woman with any kind of ambition in this world that’s all that matters, there’s only so far you can get if you don’t have that. Now, limited and provincial as my tastes may be, it is my personal opinion that you are more successful that Edythe because you are more talented than she is. But there’s something else going on here. When you tell women that they should wear your creations if they want to look beautiful, they listen to you because you stand in for their husbands and boyfriends and the general gaze of society. You have male authority whereas Edythe, she’s just another women reminding us that we’re being judged, as if we could ever forget…I don’t mean to sound like this is all your fault…but it bothers me and its worth saying” They walk in silence for a minute or two while Joe thinks this over before pronouncing;  
“I honestly had never looked at it from that particular angle before.” There is a part of her that doesn’t want to hurt his feelings which is at war with the other part that insists someone needs to say it, why not her? Besides Joe was the kind of man with whom you could discuss these kind of things without him accusing you of being some kind of man hater and storming off.  
“That may be true, Guinevere my dear” He adds after another pause “But for all your feelings of solidarity she still blackmailed you and took advantage of your situation and I consider that to be pretty unforgivable.”  
“And I think she treated you very badly which I can’t forgive…I wonder…I don’t really want the answer to this question but are you sure that you aren’t just trying to distract yourself from the end of that relationship with…whatever it is we’re embarking on at the moment?” She asks  
“When you say that you don’t want an answer…” Joe starts to answer, clearly perturbed. But before he can get the wrong sort of impression Guinevere charges in.  
“I mean that I don’t want you to say yes…I really want you to have meant what you said about looking for me your whole life. I don’t want you to be lying to yourself. I don’t want to be your shoulder to cry on or some construct of your imagination. I want to believe that you see me for who I am and that’s what you’re responding to. I want you to be the person I think you are”  
They look at each other for a very long time. She has no idea what his response will be but for now she doesn’t need one. When she had said earlier how his appearance struck her; it had been his eyes that she noticed first. They were dark, piercing eyes; accustomed to picking things apart and spotting the tiniest details. When he had first turned them on her she had felt quiet naked. This not just because, for Joe, mentally undressing women was a cultivated professional skill. But it had been exiting as well, after years of feeling completely invisible, to be so carefully scrutinized by a charming man. His gaze was no less intense now but his eyes sought nothing in her, only expressed profound affection.  
“I want that too.” He said after a very long pause “Talking with you; it just made me see something that I’d always known but hadn’t quiet had the courage to face. That’s who I am; I distract myself because sometimes I think it’s honestly the only thing to do. After the war for example…”  
Guinevere had an idea of what was coming and braced herself to be out of her depth. She’d listened to plenty of men her age talk about their experiences; most of them from her hometown who she’d grown up with. Patterns emerged to their stories, their sufferings, their assessment of what it had all been for. But they were all different in the details and how they expressed them. Guinevere however, was always the same; she never knew what to say. Joe struck her as an open sort of person but also as someone keenly aware of making other people unhappy. She turned out to be very correct in this;  
“I spent a lot of time searching for some kind of reason for everything I had been through and why I, of all people, had come back from it. If I hadn’t been able to bury my head firmly in the sand I don’t know how I could have kept going…Anyway what I had been distracting myself from, was the fact that I had been planning to marry a woman, who couldn’t even be bothered to pretend she liked me for more than five minutes. Because that way, I might not die alone. And I would have gone through with it too, just so you wouldn’t think less of me…”  
“Oh my dear, you can’t mean that”  
“I really do. I think I’d endure any kind of torment rather than have you think poorly of me…”  
He trails off at the end of the sentence and this time she seizes the moment, taking her free hand and skating it across his jaw to settle at the nape of his neck. He gets the message pretty quickly and bends his head down to make up for the difference in height between them so that she can bring her lips to his. At first it’s a little clumsy but that only seems to make them more determined to truly connect. Initially she takes the lead, exploring, questioning, searching for something in him and in herself. Then she relents, slows, and allows him to set the pace; which he does clearly demonstrating his experience in expertise in this particular field. When they break apart she opens her eyes to see Joe has a rather awed expression on his face that makes her burst out laughing. He does too only to ask what it is they’re laughing at.  
“I don’t really know, I guess I just had this idea that if I didn’t kiss you then somehow I’d lose my opportunity and have to wait again. But now that sounds rather silly and I’m not sure what made me so convinced that I’d have to make the first move in that regard. Did you want to kiss me just then? It definitely seemed like you did”  
“I’ve wanted to kiss you for quiet some time now but…you’re right. I know I’m being very forward but I never want you to feel pushed into anything you don’t feel entirely comfortable with. Speaking of delicate subjects I must ask, would you be averse to coming back home with me to my place? It’s an offer I would extend to any of my friends if they needed somewhere to stay.”  
Guinevere can tell he’s trying to avoid the uncomfortable truth that if she accepts she’ll be completely dependent on him until she can find a new position. This bothers her, but not as much as she feels it should. He was never under any obligation to assist her and she had never appealed to him. If he wasn’t committed, he could have easily made a token attempt to find her and given up. So she made a leap of faith and decided to accept that he genuinely wanted to help her. He had let himself be vulnerable earlier; given her his heart and entreated her to be gentle with it. So she would allow herself to be vulnerable as well;  
“Thank you, it would make me very happy to come and stay with you. Just for a little while mind, until I get my affairs settled. I don’t want to impose”  
“I’m very glad to hear that and please don’t worry about imposing on me”  
He proceeds to efficiently hail them a cab and they make their way to his flat as both of them fight the urge to fall asleep in the car. They get out at one of those classic Georgian buildings in Kensington and after some fumbling with the keys make their way inside. Joe takes her coat, leaving her to have a look around the sitting room.  
Guinevere expected his flat to look, to a certain degree, like Nick’s place; entirely modern with lots of white and gold and clean geometric lines. But she was pleasantly surprised to find it to have such an air of comfort about it. Not that there wasn’t a sense of style present, of course it was very deliberately and beautifully decorated and furnished. But it all looked lived in, classic but not old fashioned or overly cluttered. Not that it couldn’t do with a bit of tidying up, and there was a vase on the table that was just crying out for some flowers. But she could attend to these things later; now she was dead tired. She turned around as Joe came back into the living room holding an array of lovely silk garments over one arm.  
“So I like to have some of my wares around the place when I’m designing and so fourth…” He starts to explain  
“And they must come in handy when you have a lady friend over.” She interrupts, her tone a parody of spinsterly naiveté.  
“It never hurts to be prepared” Joe responds with mock innocence ‘Why do you think he loves you?’ she hears herself thinking even as she tries to stifle it ‘You know this type of man. He only likes you because you’re a challenge. Once it stops being fun, once he has to do any kind of work, once he gets what he wants he’ll kick you back out on the street and go chasing after something else’  
Why does it have to be so difficult? She didn’t even want that thought but here it was snaking its way around her head and through her memories. Did everyone else feel like this? Was it only her who had the worst possible outcome always weighing her down? But she refused to fight this battle anymore; she was going to be happy and that would the last of it. No matter how hard it was or how distrustful her head was of her heart, no matter what her life had taught her.  
Unaware of the fierce struggle going on inside Guinevere, Joe was continuing to offer her the nightdress. Which was probably a good thing, as they were both dead on their feet and someone needed to push things towards the stage where they could get some sleep.  
‘So I got you this one because purple seems to be your color, but you are welcome to go through them and try another if you like.” Guinevere was so enamored of the ensemble, that didn’t particularly care if it was her color or not. As she held it up she could see that it was a long silk gown with an empire waist, demarcated by a lace band with delicate little appliques that swirled from the front to the side of the gown. It came with a lace-bordered negligée of alternating silk and chiffon.  
“No, I don’t want another one. Its mine now and I absolutely refuse to part with it.”  
“Well that’s good news…” he pauses to yawn which starts her yawning as well “You are of course welcome to the bed, I can sleep out here on the couch until we work out a more permanent arrangement…” They both look at the main living room couch. It appeared to be comfortable enough, but definitely on the short side for a man of six feet. So Guinevere made a stand;  
“Absolutely not, I refuse to turn you out of your own bedchamber. I will sleep out here in the living room”  
“What kind of gentleman would I be if I invited a lady over to come stay at my place and forced her to sleep on the couch?”  
“I don’t know if I can really call myself a lady…or if I even want to. And no one’s forcing me to do anything, I am volunteering. But it seems to me that the best solution…would it be very strange of us to both sleep in the bed?”  
“Oh…well it wouldn’t be strange at all…just…”  
“And I do mean just “sleep”. I’m not ready to think about anything else two people who share a mutual attraction might do in a bed, not yet and not for a good long while”  
“My thoughts precisely. But you are still sure that you’re comfortable with this?”  
“If I didn’t want to do it, I wouldn’t have suggested it. I’m not in the habit of saying yes just to humor people or of letting them tell me what to do.” He looked at her for a rather long time considering, before pronouncing;  
“No, I don’t think you are.”  
He turned, taking her hand, and she followed him as he guided her down the hall. She went to the washroom to change allowing him the bedroom to himself. They then proceeded to go about the usual before bed routines, only briefly stopping when she needed some assistance figuring out how get her makeup off. That difficulty surmounted they settled down to sleep.  
Guinevere savored the feeling of being able to lay there in a comfortable bed for the first time she could remember before finally closing her eyes, thereby letting her very eventful day come to an end.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, so I recently rewatched this movie and I found myself loving it so dang much I even went and read the book. It makes me sad that I feel like no one has seen it and people who do often dismiss it as fluff. Its so well directed, the cast is so good, it uses its tropes so effectively and all the characters get at least a moment that makes them more nuanced then they would be in most movies like this. I just wish there was more Guinevere/Joe appreciation out there because it is rare I get this into a canon het pairing and I need a lot of fic of these two.  
> Anyway I hope you enjoy it!


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